Hey, I just interviewed with this guy!!So I got a job. Pretty, almost too quickly, after getting to Logan. It's an okay job, it's as staff at a school much like the one I used to work for, so it's interesting work, always something new, and I like the direct interaction with the girls. But I had already put out a couple resumes before I accepted this job, and I've started getting a few calls. I figure, maybe I'll look around a little still -I'm not getting amazing amounts of money at the current job, the hours are early and I have to work some weekends, and there are some other things I don't absolutely love about the job. So if there is something better, I'm not exactly going to say 'no'...
Yesterday I got called in for an interview at this law office I applied to against my better judgment. Many of you know I got out of law after several years of working as a paralegal for an attorney, because it was so incredibly tedious. But I saw this lisiting for this job, and I just thought, 'Hey, I have experience, it might be different with a different law office, and the good thing about the law...it pays well!' So I figured, I'd go in, ask for a really decent wage, and even though I don't love working in law, if they actually gave it to me maybe I'll have to seriously consider it.
So I went in this morning, we go through a fairly informal interview, he asks just a lot about my resume and different jobs I've had, about my schooling, my future plans, how long I've been married.... It comes to the end, and here it comes, he asks about my 'wage expectation'. So I get brave, this is hard for me to do, but I ask for what I want, (what I really really want). After all, what have I to lose? Now it's a big number, for me, but it's not a big number especially when you start talking about what paralegals are making nationally, or even just in other places in Utah, it's well shy of the average wage for an official paralegal according to utahjobs.com. In fact it's only like $2 more per hour than I was making at my last job in Cedar City. Plus, this guy has been going on for like twenty minutes about how this paralegal he's hiring for is like his right arm, has so much responsibility, is vital to the whole operation, is completely indispensable, is in charge of huge amounts of things and keeps the cases from disaster in general. So you'd think with that type of job description, with that much on the line, they'd be willing to pay the big bucks to get someone who is going to be good, right!?! And they're big time, civil litigation (big money) attorneys, right?!? He then proceeds to tell me, 'well we think we're pretty competitive, we try to stay in the top of the pay scale here in Logan to get good people and keep them. We don't pay as much as like the Ogden/Salt Lake area, but compared to other firms in town...have you been in to any other firms in town?? Well anyway....that's going to be a little over what our pay range is.'
Okay.
How much over?
Then he tells me what he had in mind, and folks, it's not pretty, he basically gives a range that's about $5 an hour lower than what I asked for. Basically just slightly over what I'm making at a job where I'm not required to get an ulcer and file mountains of briefs. Let's just say, come July of next year it's a wage that's only about a dollar over what the federally mandated minimum wage will be. And let's face it, given the opportunity to work the register at McDonalds, and not have to deal with attorneys, or deal with an attorney and make $1 more per hour --- I for one am going to be out there asking, "would you like fries with that?!?"
